Using Google Fonts on your site is a privacy problem because it allows Google to track your visitors even if you don’t use any other Google APIs or services. Why did you think Google so generously lets you use those fonts for free?

The tool seems to rather smoothly calculate curves between the stop points you configure

To prevent the clicking noise when the fan engages, I set it to run at 35% RPM even as a baseline, and not ramp up until the GPU hits 60 degrees. At this setting, I can’t hear the fans during desktop use; goal accomplished.

There’s a reason for the very specific title: It seems this feature is configured a little differently on Tumbleweed than on openSUSE Leap and I haven’t found any up-to-date information on this. So I’m writing this down as a note to myself.

A default Plasma desktop will use kwallet to save passwords for various desktop services (802.11x passwords, Nextcloud/ownCloud logins, SSH key passphrases, etc.). This can get inconvenient when e.g. Nextcloud wants to access the Internet, but the wallet isn’t unlocked yet, so Plasma can’t decrypt the WLAN PSK.

One solution is to:

Make your kwallet password the same as your user password

Ensure kwallet’s default wallet is called “kwallet” and that it’s the one that contains the keys you want unlocked on login

Make sure this wallet is using Blowfish encryption (this will not work in gnupg mode)

Install the require PAM modules

The package on openSUSE Tumbleweed is “pam_kwallet”, so:

sudo zypper in pam_kwallet

Log out from your desktop session, log back in and it should immediately work. In the past, you would have had to add the pam modules to /etc/pam.d/common-session or /etc/pam.d/sddm,but this is now done automatically.

The elegance of this is that you can still store more precious passwords in a separate wallet in Wallet Manager (just call that one something other than “kwallet”). That wallet can then be set to decrypt only on demand. This should save a lot of passphrase typing on a typical day.

Update, 2020-04-29: Since upgrading to kernel 5.6.6 and Mesa 20.0.4 I haven’t had any GPU resets anymore even without this workaround. It seems the reclocking issue is fixed. Keeping the article for reference:

If you have an AMD Vega 56 or 64 you may have had some issues using the amdgpu driver, namely random GPU resets leaving you with a blank or colored screen and freezing the computer after a few minutes. It seems that too aggressive memory reclocking is the culprit, but I found a solution in the Freedesktop issue list on their GitLab instance:

Stick this in your systemd, e.g. to /etc/systemd/system/amdgpu-pp.service:

When I got all fancy and moved to the 5.x kernel and Pulseaudio 12.2, I had one big new problem: My sound card would make an ugly popping noise every time it started playing sound again. Very, very 90s.

Fortunately, this can be fixed. Thanks to hateball for this solution. Stick this in your ~/.config/pulse/default.pa:

I’ve been trying SUSE as my main distribution and that’s something that hasn’t happened in my life since 1996. Even worse, this distro impressed me, a hardcore Debian nerd, quite a lot.

The reason for distro-hopping is Canonical’s bold decision to drop support for using 32-bit executables (and libraries) in Ubuntu starting as early as October 2019. That means that potentially thousands of games will no longer work, and it prompted Valve to drop support for Ubuntu in Steam. Valve is arguably the most important contributor to Linux gaming, so this is a big deal and a good enough reason to look at distros other than Ubuntu.

Cut the zucchini lengthwise and hollow them out as best you can by scraping out the flesh using a sharp spoon. Make the zucchini walls as thin as possible without breaking them, so baking won’t take forever later. Keep the zucchini flesh and chop it into small pieces. Cut the cherry tomatoes in half. Chop the garlic finely. Grate the cheese(s).

Chop the onions into small bits. Heat olive oil to slightly less than medium heat. Add the onions, fry very slowly for 5 – 10 minutes without letting them get too brown or black.

Add the garlic, paprika powder, peperoncini, salt, pepper, oregano and basil. Mix with the onions for 30 seconds to make the flavors come out. Then add the zucchini flesh and cherry tomato halves. Raise heat to medium-high. Cook while stirring occasionaly until the tomatoes have broken down and the mixture has a thick, jammy texture.

Preheat the oven to 180ºC. Put the zucchini halves on a baking tray, on top of baking paper. Fill each halved zucchino roughly to the brim with the cooked mixture and sprinkle parmesan and goat cheese on top. Bake at 180ºC in the middle of the oven for 30 – 40 minutes. Keep an eye on the cheese, don’t let it get too dark.

None of the systems that Final Fantasy XV throws at you really work on their own. The fast travel system is not fast at all. The combat can be anything from confusing to floaty, from frustrating to disappointingly easy. The world that’s presented, a melange of present-day hyperrealism, sci-fi and fantasy, shouldn’t work at all. Leveling up can only be done while resting, magic spells need to be constructed from scratch before use and the controls and camera are sometimes terrible, sometimes passable. You’d think this game would be a huge disappointment, but strangely, it develops a rough charm that’s impossible to pin on any one thing.

I’m (re)reading a lot of Brad Warner’s books during these holidays. If you ever feel like learning about no-bullshit hardcore Zen buddhism from a punk bass player and ordained Zen master (who hates that term), I can recommend: Sit Down and Shut Up, Don’t Be a Jerk and It Came From Beyond Zen, in that order. You can also try Hardcore Zen, the original work

Brad explains Zen itself and Eihei Dōgen’s Shōbōgenzō in plain English so you don’t have to spend 30 years studying classical Japanese. Dōgen was about 800 years ahead of his time, so reading him now is excellent timing

The books are short and if they pique your interest, you can always follow up with the very compact, unrelenting and and intense Mastering the Core Teachings of the Buddha by Daniel M. Ingram.

The festival was great in theory, but also way too cramped, more so than usual. That’s why there aren’t many takeaways:

Necrophobic. I saw them live a few years ago but somehow didn’t realize they’re this interesting. Bought Mark of the Necrogram, but they have a sizeable backlog I now have to work on. Unfortunately, they don’t seem to be on Bandcamp so I had to buy from one of the evil empires (Google in this case).

Slægt. A sort of blackened heavy metal from Denmark. I don’t like all the songs but the style mixture is compelling. Slægt on Bandcamp.

Desaster. A thrash and black thing? Maybe. It’s a bit straightforward for the most part so I haven’t bought any albums just yet, but they had a very energetic stage presence so the show felt great. If they’re at some other festival or on a solo tour I’d definitely consider going.

Wiegedood. Can’t decide if it’s plain black metal or if they’ve mixed a harsher type of shoegaze into it. Think of a heavier Alcest song played on a slightly broken amp that you run too loudly.

Usually I find more bands at EMM, but this time it was almost impossible to watch any acts on the small stage because everything was so packed with people. This is a shame, as it’s the small stage that has the more underground stuff and I’ve discovered at least 10 groups there in the last two years.

Of course you can always watch some of the more interesting-sounding parts of the lineup on YouTube, but that’s so not the same. Oh, well.